Kelly: (00:06 )
Welcome to buildings and beyond

Robb: (00:09 )
The podcast that explores how we can create a more sustainable built environment

Kelly: (00:14 )
By focusing on efficiency, accessibility and health.

Robb: (00:18 )
I’m Robb Aldrich.

Kelly: (00:19 )
And I’m Kelly Westby.

Kelly: (00:24 )
We are so excited to bring you season two of Buildings and Beyond. To start out this season, I will be speaking with Timothy McDonald. In 1997 Tim and his brother founded Onion Flats, a Philadelphia based real estate design, development, and build firm. Tim and Onion Flats have been on a bit of a sustainability journey over the past two decades and his experience is invaluable to anyone who considers themselves in the design, construction or sustainability industries. Tim takes a design thinking approach to development. Each new project is building on the lessons learned from the previous project and taking us a step or two closer to net positive impact. I started out by asking Tim what he thinks are the top three things developers, designers and builders should think about when trying to design quality, efficient, affordable housing. Tim does an excellent job of describing his perspective, so let’s just dive right in.

Tim: (01:25 )
Well, I guess the first one is related to who we are as a company. And I think that’s pretty important, because we’re a vertically integrated company. We’re developers, architects and builders, which means ultimately that we control the process from beginning to end. And I think that that’s how quality really happens. I think that being a vertically integrated company allows us to build more cost effectively because there just aren’t as many layers that need liability to slow us down or to cost us more money. And I think we’re more agile and nimble as a company. If we run into problems, we turn them into opportunitiesrather than change orders, which costs more money, we actually make a problem costs less money. So I think that that’s the first thing. The first thing is that to be a vertically integrated company is just really helpful in doing any kind of architecture. I think the second one is that you really just have to be committed to a particular definition of what sustainability is. You just have to want it and you have to be committed to it. And for us over the past 10 years, sustainability is no longer a kind of generalized sense. It’s really focused primarily on climate change, because it is the existential threat that we all face. And it is the focus of all of our work. And because of that, we’ve been looking for the right tool to allow us to design and build buildings that are cost effective, that don’t contribute carbon to the environment. And for us, that’s passive house. So to me it’s about, when you find the right tool, you work with that, which doesn’t mean that our sense of sustainability doesn’t also include issues around water and transportation and indoor air quality and so forth. But, I would say if you want to know what we are about, that is the focus, until we’re gone that’s the focus of our work. And I guess the third one might be that we just really believe that there are two ways to get the word out about the significance of this issue of climate change and how buildings contribute to it. And that is either: you demonstrate it through your own work and then you go share that as much as you possibly can, or you legislate it. You get it changed, you get building codes changed. You work with affordable housing agencies, which is this initiative that we started about four or five years ago, to get not so much legislation, but the way that affordable housing gets funded, we worked really hard on that. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are two parts of what we do. One is that we’re advocates of this kind of work and we go around the country to try and talk about it as much as possible, and then we demonstrate it with our own work.

Kelly: (05:06 )
Right. And thanks by the way for sharing this to all of our listeners. Advocating and getting the word out that way. So how did you come to the passive house standards specifically? Were there other standards that you looked at or tried and what were your thoughts around that?

Tim: (05:26 )
So the first pr